BOULDER, CO – As the number of digital health startups in Colorado has increased over the past few years, new features of the state’s healthcare innovation economy have appeared to accelerate the growth of these startups.

The tech incubators Innovation Pavilion and Innosphere have both established digital health initiatives. Originally founded to regularly convene the Colorado digital health ecosystem, Prime Health is currently developing a spin-off of its ecosystem integrator model – the value integrator – which will help digital health startups demonstrate clinical efficacy. And the upcoming digital health hub Catalyst HTI, which is slated to open in early 2018, will be a first-of-its-kind industry integrator – so-called because it intends to integrate established healthcare organizations and health-tech startups “at the point of innovation.”

In late 2015 the Boulder-based business accelerator Boomtown further expanded Colorado’s booming healthcare innovation economy by launching the state’s first health-tech accelerator. Last night the inaugural class of the Boomtown Health-Tech Accelerator held a Demo Day at the Boulder Theater to celebrate its completion of the new program. CyberMed News attended the event to learn more about the first graduates of the Boomtown Health-Tech Accelerator.

Visible Hand

“What do we all want when we grow older,” Matt Morris, the CEO of Visible Hand, asked the audience at the Boomtown Demo Day. “To feel connected to those around us. To feel safe and secure, knowing we’re going to get the care we need when we need it. But for seven out of ten of us, that’s not going to happen.”

Visible Hand has developed a mobile app to improve the quality of care delivered by staff at long-term care facilities. The app provides staff members with an easy way to report what they observe, while giving them quick access to information on best practices in behavioral health treatment. The app also uses a proprietary algorithm to track both employee performance and treatment efficacy for each patient.

Patientory

Patientory collects its users’ medical information in one HIPAA-compliant platform, aggregating it for easy access. It then uses that information to connect users with others who have similar medical issues, creating networks of patients who can support one another by sharing information and advice.

“Before the age of social media we were limited to our doctor or our grandmother for health advice,” said Chrissa McFarlane, the CEO of Patientory. “Now, with the click of a button we have access to an entire network.”

Agathos

“Doctors rarely know the underlying costs of their care or how their care compares to that of their peers or established standards,” said Andrew Trees, the CEO of Agathos. “Many do not know how their care impacts the health of their patients, even though the data to address all of these matters already exists.”

Agathos employs a simple dashboard to provide physicians with accurate pricing information so they can better understand the impact their treatment decisions have on the overall cost of care. The company’s platform also allows physicians to compare their performance with their peers, and is currently being piloted by the physicians at the Colorado Permanente Medical Group.

Mindful Labs

Mindful Labs collects hair samples from its users once a month to measure the concentration of cortisol in their bodies. This measurement allows Mindful Labs to assess users’ stress levels and gauge the efficacy of mindfulness interventions provided through the company’s app.

“We’re quantifying your exposure to stress, but we’re going one step further – from the digital to the molecular,” said Tate Knutstad, the CEO of Mindful Labs. “We’re using the actual stuff you are made of to understand your exposure to stress.”

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